Lion and Mouse

If we were in ‘real’ school I would still be reading a story to my kindergarten ELL students every lesson. We would continue to be learning about the features of a story such as the characters,the  setting, the plot, the problem and the solution. Before reading, we would look at the title and picture walk through the book and make our predictions about what will happen. After reading we would check our predictions and then do an activity. Children would be practicing their listening and speaking skills while developing more vocabulary.  In Term 3, I often read some fairy tales and fables.

The classroom teachers have prepared lots of wonderful learning opportunities for the kindergarten students. If there is time after doing their assigned work, your child may like to listen to a fairy tale or fable and do an activity that helps with the sequencing of events and the retelling of a story. I have attached a page with 6 pictures.

click here – The Lion and the Mouse

If your child likes to colour, they could colour in the pictures as a pre-reading activity. You could talk about:

• How many characters can you see?
• Where is this story taking place?
• What do you think will happen?

Instead of a read aloud, the child can watch this video.

After watching the video, cut the page into the 6 sections. Ask your child to put them in order. Send me a picture if you can. I would love to see it.

Invite them to retell the story. If they are reluctant to respond you can prompt with questions and words. Here are some examples:

• What happened first and point to picture #1, second, third, fourth, fifth, finally pointing to the pictures each time.
• Alternatively, you could use prompts like first, then, next, after that, soon, later, (in any order) finally while pointing to each picture in turn.
• Or use leading phrases followed by a question for each picture, e.g. When the mouse got caught, what happened? When the mouse bit the rope …what happened next?
• They could just describe what happened in the beginning, the middle, the end of the video story?
• You could ask ‘What is the problem in the story? What is the solution? This may still be difficult for many of the children to express in words. That’s okay.

Enjoy this reading experience together.